They're Calling It "Child Safety." It's Actually a Surveillance State.
- Kal Inois
- 9 hours ago
- 8 min read
There's a bill moving through Congress right now that sounds completely reasonable on the surface. *Who could possibly be against protecting kids online?*
That's exactly what they're counting on.
The Kids Online Safety Act — KOSA — along with a package of roughly a dozen related "child safety" bills, is quietly advancing through the House with bipartisan support. And while the name evokes images of legislators shielding children from predators, the actual mechanics of these laws tell a very different story. This is not a child safety package. It is the most sweeping assault on anonymous speech and civil liberties in the history of the American internet, and it's being sold to you with a picture of a child on the label.
The Trick Hidden in the Fine Print
Here's the fundamental problem that proponents of these bills refuse to address honestly: there is no way to verify someone's age without verifying who they are.
A platform cannot determine that a user is 16 years old without collecting hard identifying data — a government-issued ID, a credit card, a passport, biometric information. Whether that data is stored directly by the platform or outsourced to a third-party vendor, the result is identical: your real, offline identity becomes permanently and irrevocably attached to everything you do online.
Every post. Every search. Every community you join. Every cause you support. Every question you ask.
All of it, tied to your name. All of it, accessible.
That is not a side effect of these bills. That is the point.
What the Bill Actually Says — And What It Doesn't
To understand why this law is so dangerous, it helps to read what Congress is actually proposing. Here is the official summary of KOSA, straight from Congress.gov:
The bill requires covered platforms — social media, video games, messaging apps, and streaming services used by anyone under 17 — to implement "reasonable care" in their design to prevent harm to minors. It restricts market research on children, requires parental tools, and mandates that platforms notify users when algorithms are being used to personalize their experience.
On paper, that sounds measured. Even reasonable.
But here is what the bill conspicuously does not say: how platforms are supposed to verify that a user is under 17 in the first place.
That silence is not an oversight. It is the entire problem.
The moment a platform is legally required to identify which users are minors, it must collect identifying information on every user — because the only way to know who is under 17 is to know who everyone is. The bill creates the legal obligation without specifying the mechanism, which means platforms will be left to determine on their own how to verify age. In practice, that means government IDs, credit cards, biometric data, or third-party identity verification vendors, all of which permanently link your real identity to your online behavior.
The bill also hands enforcement power to the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general. That sounds like accountability. But consider what that means when the Heritage Foundation has publicly stated it intends to use KOSA's enforcement mechanism to remove LGBTQ+ content and abortion information from the internet, framing both as harmful to minors. Senator Marsha Blackburn, the bill's lead sponsor, has said outright that KOSA is needed to protect children from "the transgender in this culture." The enforcement tool being built here is not neutral. It will be used by whoever holds power, for whatever they define as harm.
And the data protection provisions in the bill — the ones that sound protective — actually reinforce the concern. If platforms are collecting identity-linked data on minors, and that data must be "protected," that means it exists. It is stored somewhere. It can be subpoenaed, breached, sold, or demanded by a federal agency. The bill doesn't eliminate that risk. It creates the conditions for it.
The gap between what KOSA claims to do and what it actually enables is not a technicality. It is the whole story.
Who Actually Gets Hurt
Supporters of KOSA and the App Store Accountability Act want you to picture a 13-year-old mindlessly scrolling through harmful content. But think about who actually depends on online anonymity to survive:
Trans youth in hostile states who use anonymous online spaces to find community, support, and information about their own identity at a time when their government-issued IDs are literally being invalidated in states like Kansas.
Undocumented immigrants who rely on anonymous communication to connect with legal advocates and stay informed about their rights, at a moment when IÇE is expanding its reach into every corner of American life.
Whistleblowers — the government employees, scientists, and public servants who, during †®ump's first term, created anonymous accounts to preserve and share suppressed federal research on climate, public health, and more. They would have been immediately identifiable and prosecuted under these laws.
Abortion seekers and reproductive health advocates in states where accessing that information is increasingly criminalized.
Protest organizers — including the young people who have led campus movements against the war in Gaza and against IÇE. Anonymous online organizing would become a thing of the past.
Journalists and dissidents whose ability to communicate with sources, gather information, and report freely depends on layers of digital anonymity.
These are not hypotheticals. These are the people these laws will be used against first and most aggressively.
This Playbook Has Been Used Before
We don't have to speculate about what happens when governments eliminate online anonymity. We have examples.
After the United Kingdom's Online Safety Act took effect in July 2025, it was immediately weaponized; within days, platforms began hiding videos documenting atrocities in Gaza behind age barriers and content warnings. Civil rights organizations raised urgent alarms that the law, combined with the UK's vague definition of terrorism, would be used to suppress Palestine solidarity content and silence legitimate political protest. The UN Human Rights Chief condemned the UK's use of anti-terrorism legislation to restrict lawful speech and assembly.
China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia have long used identity-linked internet systems to identify, surveil, and imprison activists who challenge state power. Indonesia, Malaysia, France, and Australia are all in various stages of implementing similar systems.
The pattern is not subtle. Every authoritarian government in the modern era has understood the same thing: you cannot fully control a population that can communicate anonymously. Strip that away, and dissent doesn't just become dangerous. It becomes impossible.
We are being asked to do this to ourselves. Voluntarily. In the name of protecting children.
And About Who's Actually Pushing This…
The coalition behind these bills should give everyone pause, regardless of political affiliation.
The Heritage Foundation, which has openly stated it plans to use KOSA to scrub LGBTQ+ and abortion content from the internet, is a driving force. Heritage has been explicit: they view KOSA as a mechanism to advance the most extreme goals of Project 2025, including keeping what they call "trans content" away from minors. Senator Marsha Blackburn, KOSA's lead co-sponsor, has said the law is needed to protect children from "the transgender in this culture."
But the right wing isn't the only player here. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has argued in court that Apple and Google should verify the identity of every single smartphone user at the operating system level — which would end anonymous internet access entirely, for everyone, forever. Meta secretly funds the Digital Childhood Alliance, a group that publicly rails against Big Tech while lobbying for these exact bills. Peter Thiel's investment group has backed Persona, one of the ID verification vendors that would profit enormously from mandatory identity checks becoming law.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has already signed an ID verification law for all operating systems. The bipartisan veneer on this issue is real — and it should terrify you, because it means there is no cavalry coming from within the political establishment.
The Pentagon is simultaneously exploring the use of AI to mass surveil U.S. citizens by harvesting commercially available data. Age verification laws would hand that effort an enormous gift: a continuously updated, identity-linked database of exactly who said what, where, and when, across the entire internet.
This Is the Moment to Act
These bills are moving now. The window to stop them is open, but it will not stay open forever. Here is what you can do today:
1. Call and write your representatives. Be specific: tell them you oppose KOSA, the App Store Accountability Act, and any legislation that mandates identity verification for internet access. You can find your representatives at house.gov and senate.gov. Congressional offices count calls. They count emails. They count constituent pressure. Apply it.
2. Support digital rights organizations on the front lines. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org) and Fight for the Future (fightforthefuture.org) are actively fighting these bills with legal expertise, public advocacy, and direct lobbying. Follow them. Donate if you can. Amplify their work.
3. Share this information. Most people have no idea these bills exist, let alone what they actually do. The "child safety" framing is effective precisely because it shuts down scrutiny before it starts. Break through that framing. Talk about this at your kitchen table, in your group chats, on your social media feeds — while you still can do so anonymously.
4. Reject the false choice. You can believe children deserve protection online AND believe that blanket surveillance is not the answer. In fact, these laws make children less safe. They create vast new troves of sensitive data that predatory companies and bad actors can exploit. Real child safety requires data minimization, not data maximization. Don't let anyone tell you that opposing surveillance means opposing child safety.
The Bottom Line
A government that knows exactly who you are, what you read, who you talk to, and what you believe is not a government that works for you. It is a government that has power over you.
The internet has, for all its flaws, remained one of the last spaces where ordinary people can organize, speak, question, and dissent without automatically being identified and catalogued by the state. These bills would end that. Not partially. Not theoretically. Completely.
They are calling it child safety.
Call it what it is.
Want to take action now? Contact the EFF at eff.org, Fight for the Future at fightforthefuture.org, and find your representatives at house.gov and senate.gov or go to 5calls.org.
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